These Books Show That Bi Folks Are Far From Greedy

One of the hardest things for many LGBTQ+ folks is growing up without seeing themselves represented in history, in the media, or in pop culture. This is changing, but there are still groups that are vastly underrepresented, like trans people of color, nonbinary people of all stripes, asexual folks, and, though you may not think so at first, bisexuals (which, by the by, encompass about 40 percent of queer people of color and about 50 percent of trans individuals).

Thankfully, bisexuality and sexual fluidity seem to be on the rise in terms of representation in the bookish world, although it is still often derided. Earlier this year, YA author Julie Murphy published Ramona Blue, a novel about a tall, white, working class lesbian teenager living in Mississippi with her recently impregnated sister, her sister’s deadbeat boyfriend, and her hardworking father in a trailer not much bigger than the one FEMA gave them back in 2004 after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the area. The novel is also about how this lesbian teen, Ramona, falls in love with Freddie, a black boy she knew when she was young and who’s just returned to town. Obviously, this is where the issue lies: Ramona is a lesbian, so how can she fall in love with a guy?

Many accused the book of being lesbophobic and gave it one-star reviews before it even came out. On Ramona Blue’s Goodreads page, the Popular Answered Question listed is, “Shockingly, bisexuals throw lesbian sexuality under the bus yet again in the name of sexual fluidity — Is anyone still surprised?” One of the top reviews begins like this: “How can you not understand the negative ramifications that writing a book where a lesbian finds the 'right guy' and is magically Not A Lesbian anymore is going to have.....like its [sic] literally an idea that actively harms ACTUAL lesbians oh my god.”

Reading these comments turns my stomach. I stopped identifying as bisexual exactly because of attitudes like this. I worry about whether I am somehow harmful to the queer community or don’t belong in it because I am in a long-term relationship with a cis man. Because the thing is, what if the comments and questions above are right? In the case of this book, are bisexuals throwing lesbian sexuality under the bus? Is Ramona Blue actively harming actual lesbians? After reading this book and other novels that portray both sexual fluidity and bisexuality well, my answer has to be a big, fat NOPE.

Bisexuality is vastly misunderstood and often misrepresented by members of both straight and queer communities. One big misconception is that bisexual folks just can’t make up our minds; another is that we’re greedy. Yet another, and the one that really pushed me away from the label and towards that of ‘queer’ instead, is that bisexuals are re-enforcing the gender binary. Let’s clear the air on this for a moment, in case you’ve heard that too: the “bi” in bisexual doesn’t refer to the gender binary, but rather to a sexual binary of potential couplings, hetero or homo, which is archaically defined by one person’s genitals in relation to another’s. Put another way, the “bi” in bisexual can mean attraction to one’s own gender and to another. So being bi basically means having the potential to be into anyone, with any configuration of gender expression, identity, and presentation. People’s preferences beyond that are simply unique to what attracts them.

Clearly, biphobia is still alive and well, as the comments on Ramona Blue’s Goodreads page shows. At the same time, there seems to be a trend towards more bisexual characters in books. I’m no data analyst, but it was pretty easy to figure out that well over 100 books including bisexual characters were published in 2017 alone. The Bi-bliography is a database that lists fiction, nonfiction, and poetry titles featuring bisexual characters “in main or supporting roles,” or bisexual themes. The curators of the Bi-bliography are aware of how subjective this is, especially in fiction, and they warn readers that “the word bisexual appears infrequently in fiction” and that their requirement for inclusion in the database is “that the story features at least one character who has (or has had in the past) romantic and/or sexual attraction/intimacy/relationships with people of two or more genders.”

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The thing that gives me hope for bi folk, is that the authors of many of these books seem to really, really get it. Ramona challenges Freddie when he asks her how, if she’s never kissed a guy, she knows she’s gay. “How many boys did you kiss before you realized you were straight?” she asks him. Later, when her toxic mother asks who Freddie is, Ramona lies and says he’s just a good friend, because, she explains, “I cannot stomach the thought of my mother thinking some boy just came along and turned me straight.” These are real anxieties that come up for bi folks. Many people assume that the only way to be bi is if you’ve actually kissed or slept with someone in order to prove it. A trans woman friend of mine in college had terrible anxiety about whether she was gay or straight, but every time she landed on a label, she’d end up ruefully telling me a day or two later that she was probably just bi after all.

Ramona Blue is only one of the many, many books that have come out in 2017 that celebrate the normalcy of sexual fluidity and bisexuality. Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley follows 15-year-old Aki Simon, who knows she’s bisexual but has only dated guys so far, until she goes to a Mexican town with her church youth group and meets a girl named Christa. Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee, which is aimed at slightly younger readers, explores how the gender-bending experience of playing Romeo in a school play ignites Mattie’s bisexuality as she suddenly crushes on both a boy named Elijah, and new student, Gemma, who plays Juliet.

Another favorite of mine is Anne-Marie McLemore’s Wild Beauty, a magical realism YA novel that also tries to speak to and defy the trope of bisexuals as greedy. The book features five bisexual cousins who are part of a cursed family of women whose partners always leave them. One of these teens, Estrella, who is nervous about her mother and aunts finding out about her sexuality, thinks, “There was no way to tell their mothers the truth and make them believe it, that hearts that loved boys and girls were no more reckless or easily won than any other heart. They loved who they loved. They broke how they broke. And the way it happened depended less on what was under their lovers’ clothes and more on what was wrapped inside their spirits.”

In the end, whether you’re gay, straight, bi, queer, or any other sexuality, isn’t that what love is about, really? Not about what is under someone’s clothes, because the body is a changeable, bendable thing, but what is inside a person’s ephemeral spirit or personality that makes them a woman, a man, a genderfluid person, or a genderless one? Bisexuality is beautiful, and is part of the spectrum of queerness that deserves authentic representation.

The Bi-bliography reminds us that the word “bisexual” is still rarely used in fiction, but there are a few upcoming releases to get excited about. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (April 2018), is about a drummer, Leah Burke, who struggles to come out as bi to anyone except her single mom. Let’s Talk About Love, by Claire Kann (out now), is centered around Alice, a bi asexual teenager whose girlfriend breaks up with her when she comes out as ace. As representation increases, we gain the ability to understand bisexuality from an endless number of perspectives — and learning about the different ways in which bisexual people (and characters) interpret their own sexualities is one of the most exciting aspects of diving into a novel. Books with bisexual content depict love as more encompassing, inclusive, and possible, trusting us to open our hearts, and helping us to do just that.

Ilana Masad is a queer Israeli-American fiction writer and book critic with work published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the LA Times, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney's, and many more. She is the founder and host of The Other Stories podcast and spends too much time on Twitter.

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